How the tides have turned.
Just two months ago, we were reading news about how Singapore is contributing to the fight against COVID-19 globally by donating medical supplies to other countries that need them urgently.
Our former Transport Minister even posed with the donation because why not:
And when Malaysia asked, we supplied, even when they said their nasi lemak is better than ours (newsflash: ours is better):
But now, we’re on the receiving end.
Which goes to show one thing: thank God we’ve been helpful so far.
Taiwan Allegedly Going to Donate Over Masks to S’pore; Number is Still Unknown
About one month ago, both Singapore and Taiwan were praised worldwide on how we managed to contain the virus within our shores.
People from Harvard sang praises about our system and WHO said we had “Gold Standard”. Fast forward to today and I’m writing this article at home with a cup of Maggie Mee beside me, and it’s been 57 days since the Circuit—
Reader Bao: 5 days
—oh, right. 5 days since we’ve all been stuck at home.
Even Trevor Noah spoke briefly about us in one of his videos, and that guy seldom cares about us except for our food.
While over at Taiwan, they’re still having single-digit daily new cases, with a total of only 385 cases now…and only 54 of them are locally transmitted.
One of the reasons is that the country has been prepared for it since a while back; you can read this article on how they managed to contain the virus so effectively.
And the country that brought us Jay Chou and XXL Chicken Cutlet is now helping its friends.
According to Taiwan News, an English-language newspaper in Taiwan that was established in 1949 and has become an all-digital newspaper since 2015, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has confirmed on Wednesday (7 April 2020) that they would be donating masks to Singapore.
And it’s not just to Singapore.
MOFA’s Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Head, Baushuan Ger, said that they would be donating 1 million masks to NSP countries that have requested for them.
What is an NSP country?
NSP, in this case, doesn’t refer to an opposition party in Singapore. It means New Southbound Policy, which is essentially an initiative to enhance cooperation and exchanges between Taiwan and 18 countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
And Singapore is one of the NSP countries.
To put it simply, it’s like…erm, friends lah.
Ger said that about 7 or 8 NSP countries have requested for the masks, and they’re allegedly the Philippines, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Singapore.
So, how many of the 1 million masks would land on our shore?
That is not disclosed yet.
In the meantime, aren’t you glad that we’ve been such a good friend to other countries?